like bile.

Look, I aspire to be a writer of good quality novels. Thomas Harris has written 3 very engrossing and entertaining ones, namely Black Sunday, Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs. All three of these I read with such interest and fervor I didn’t put them down until I finished them. Most notably, I remember a hot and sunburned day by a pool in Florida where I finished Silence in record time for me. I started after breakfast and finished before supper.

So the man has talent. But I think he’s lost his way with the last two efforts.

Hannibal seemed like an effort to take this maniacal yet ethical killer to some literary place, and damnit, why bother? There is no shame in a compelling character of good fiction, he doesn’t have to be Hiawatha.

With Hannibal Rising, Harris takes us back in time to what made Hannibal Lecter into the monster that he is, and I submit, it feels like total bullshit. Ok, I can deal with Hannibal and the abuses he experienced due to WWII and the unscrupulous looters and profiteers of that time. But because they ate his younger sister, he becomes a cannibal himself? The sociopathic/psychotic break is barely scratched and the entire book seems like an effort to confuse the reader rather than develop the protagonist.

Sadly, I’ll buy any other work Harris puts out in the hope he goes back to his strengths, namely good action and frightening humans.

Just my $0.02, for whatever that’s worth.

I’m looking forward to the new season of No Reservations. I’ve enjoyed all of his series on the Food Network (A Cook’s Tour), and now the Travel Channel. I’ve not read any of his fiction, but I have all of his other books and I truly enjoy his ability to mix his New York “Fuck you buddy!” attitude with a real appreciation and consideration for the weird and wild local customs of the places he visits. He is at times the ugly drunk American yet the hopefully respectful traveller.

 Truth be told, I’m emerald green with fucking envy. The new season of No Reservations starts Monday night at 10 PM EST, set your Tivos.

I can’t remember when I was this psyched about the upcoming New Year.This past year of 2006 was a great year of change for me. I lost 50 pounds. I got burned out on the computer industry. I took care of my Mom. And eventually, I quit a lucrative job doing technical writing, which was draining my soul.

I will enter this New Year of 2007 gainfully unemployed, working on a novel and happier than I have been in recent memory. Even if I don’t sell this mother, I can say that I’ve done it, I wrote the novel, maybe I’m not good enough for public consumption, but damnit, I DID it. I won’t have to wonder about what I could have done when I was younger. I might be a ditch digger or a bartender or some other such thing by year’s end, but I look forward to the adventure this coming year promises.

Bring it bitch. 

Not to bring you down this Christmas, but James Brown, the hardest working man in show business and the owner of the worst hair this side of Donald Trump died today due to complications from pneumonia. He was 73.

Say hello to Elvis for us Godfather, life is just a bit less funky without you.

Here’s hoping you and yours have a safe a happy Holiday season. I feel like this coming year is going to be outstanding.

When I was about 10 or so, my “big gift” for the year was a forgone conclusion. My Mom and Dad had taken me out to find the exact gift I wanted, and that gift was a monsterously long electric racing car track. In the neighborhood of 60 ft of track, this Tyco set covered an entire regulation ping pong table almost completely and had 3 levels with about 5 straightaways and a circular column at one end, where the track spiraled up almost a foot from the table top.

It was truly  glorious thing to see on a box when you are a 10 year old boy.

On Christmas Eve, I went to bed with visions of racing cars and trigger controllers zooming through my head.

My Dad, as always, played into the Santa myth, and NEVER assembled any big gifts until the kids went to bed. On this night, the track would get the best of him. I would find out years later that my Dad labored over that track until well after 3 AM, and as I was told, he never got it working. This is an amazing thing in and of itself, since my Dad was pretty much an electronics whiz. On thop of this, he was a HUGE car racing fan, and I’m sure the track beckoned his long dormant inner child. I’m positive that if the track had been working, my Dad would have been up till 3 AM racing the cars rather than sweating and cursing quietly while wondering why the damned thing would not work.

So, accepting failure, my Dad (at Mom’s behest) went to bed expecting to show me the present assembled in the morning, but having to apologize to me that it wasn’t working and explaining that we would have to return it for a new one.

Fast forward to 8:00 AM.

Like any 10 year old boy on Christmas morning, as soon as the sun tickled the back of my eyelids, I was out of bed like a bolt. Running downstairs, I looked at the ping pong table in complete AWE. This track WAS HUGE! This thing was going to be SO FUN! All the neighborhood kids would be GREEN WITH ENVY! This was the perfect present!

Little did I know of any electric snafu during the previous night, so I plugged in the transformer, grabbed one of the cars, slotted it in the track, picked up the trigger controller and just started racing. As simple as that, off it went down the straightaway to the circular tower making 3 rotations before flying down another straightaway and around the seemingly neverending track. I was in 10 year old boy Heaven.

Less than half hour later, Mom and Dad made their way downstairs with my sisters (the ever sleepy ones) in tow. As they turned the corner from the stairs, both of my parents froze. A quick look was traded between the two of them, but that was all. My Mom and my sisters started to look at packages under the tree and my Dad made his way to the track, where he picked up a controller and joined me for a little while with a silly grin on his face.

I never knew that morning was a Christmas miracle until I was 21, but to this day, I will always remember Dad’s silly grin that morning. Little did I know what it meant.  

Just.. WOW.

I really appreciate good writing and this is the best I’ve seen since the Sopranos. The Ice Truck Killer is Dexter’s real older brother. Just over the top and I can’t wait for the next season.

Kudos.

Damn, I thought it was over too soon, Dex captures him and has him bound for the kill. And he cuts his throat and bleeds him out. Oh crap.

Dex has become.

What a great twist. 

That Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the double helix of DNA and Nobel Prize winner was under the influence of LSD when he made the miraculous discovery that changed how we understand life, our universe and everything.

Weird. They never taught us this in High School.

Read More 

Ok, it’s probably happened to everyone, but we need to fix it.

We’re all channel surfers at one time or another, just seeing what is on clicking up or down the dial when suddenly, you’re confronted with some heart stopping gorefest of an operation of some hideous animal trauma. 

Why does it have to be this way? I mean, we have interstitial ads, why can’t we have interstitial warnings on either side of a gory realism channel? Like “Attention, the next channel (XX) is showing a realistic depiction of open heart surgery, adult supervision or socio-pyscopathic tendencies is advised for viewing.” I mean, no amount of brain bleach can get these images out of my head before I sleep that night.

Does this happen to you? Do you care? Am I a big wuss?

My sister works at Indiana University. She’s been on faculty for 19 years or so and she just won the faculty merit award yesterday. I drove my mom up to Bloomington for the reception and truly had a great time. She is very dedicated to her work and the students of IU and I really admire her for it.

Congrats Sis. About time they noticed.